BMP B-11 (Object 695) on the Kurganets-25 platform - developed by the Tractor Plants concern. Many other enterprises are involved in the development of the platform, such as the Burevestnik Central Research Institute and others. The platform is designed on a modular basis, which makes it possible to facilitate and speed up the production and repair of armored vehicles based on it. It is expected that production for experimental military use will begin in 2020 and serial production in 2020.
Design
The engine-transmission compartment of the platform is located in the front of the body and shifted to the right to improve the layout of the vehicle[7]. To unload troops, a ramp with an additional door in it is used. The weight of the vehicle will be approximately 25 tons. Metal armor elements will complement the active protection complex on the tower. Ammunition and weapons are isolated from the landing force and crew[8].
The crew consists of three people. The troop compartment is designed for eight people.
The suspension is hydropneumatic, with variable ground clearance from 100 to 500 mm.
The BMD and BMP platforms are equipped with a remote-controlled universal combat module "Boomerang-BM", armed with a 30-mm 2A42 automatic cannon with selective ammunition (ammunition capacity 500 rounds), a 7.62-mm PKTM machine gun (ammunition capacity 2000 rounds), two dual launchers ATGM "Kornet". There is no automatic grenade launcher[1][9]. The movement of the combat module is carried out by computer-controlled electric motors[2][6][8]. The combat module can be controlled by the gunner and the vehicle commander. The universal combat module, due to robotization, is capable of tracking the target and independently firing at the object until it is destroyed; the operator only needs to indicate the target, after which the computer will begin tracking it itself.
The car is also equipped with cameras to monitor the surrounding environment. The rear door has an embrasure for an AK assault rifle.
Performance characteristics of the BMP B-11
Crew, persons: 3 Troops, persons: 8 Classification: Unified tracked platform Layout: Front-engine Suspension type: Hydropneumatic, with variable ground clearance
Weight of BMP B-11
— 25 tons
Dimensions of BMP B-11
— Hull length, mm: 7200 — Hull width, mm: 3200 — Hull height, mm: 2365 — Height with combat module, mm: 3020 — Commander’s sight height, mm: 3290 — Ground clearance, mm: Variable, 100-500 mm
Armament of the BMP B-11
— Caliber and brand of gun: 30-mm 2A42 automatic cannon — Firing range, km: for manpower — up to 4 — for lightly armored vehicles: up to 1.5 — Machine guns: 1 × 7.62 mm PKTM — Other weapons: 4 × ATGM Kornet-EM
More intelligence
A new, more advanced generation of military equipment is always good, but often quite expensive. Meanwhile, the armed forces have a large number of vehicles of the previous generation, which could still serve after modernization. This year, at the Army-2015 forum, the Tractor Plants concern presented several modifications of the rather successful Soviet BMP-3. One of the innovations proposed to equip the classic infantry fighting vehicle is the Vityaz digital fire control system. Its main feature is the presence of two identical sighting systems with television, infrared, rangefinder channels, as well as a missile control channel. One complex is at the disposal of the gunner operator (partially located in the turret), the other is at the disposal of the commander. If the commander finds the target first, he can take control of the fire instead of giving the command to the gunner.
"Kurganets-25" Classification: unified tracked platform // Existing samples: infantry fighting vehicles, armored personnel carriers // Layout: front-engine // Crew: 3 people. // Landing: 8 people. // // Armament (in the BMP version): 30 mm 2A42 cannon; 7.62 mm PK machine gun // Movement on water: speed 10 km/h.
"Vityaz" includes the ability to remotely control fire and allows you to integrate the infantry fighting vehicle into a unified unit control system. The infantry fighting vehicle is capable of receiving target instructions both from higher authorities and from reconnaissance groups and automatically targeting a given target. “Such modernization, of course, adds efficiency to an individual vehicle, but has a much greater impact on the efficiency of the unit by improving interaction between combat units,” says Mikhail Chemeza, deputy head of the military equipment department of the Tractor concern. The Vityaz system, which provides remote fire control, was a step towards the use of an uninhabited combat module. And this step was taken. Also presented in 2020, the BMP-3 “Derivation” is equipped with an AU-220M automatic combat module. The operator-gunner's position has been moved deeper into the hull.
"Kurganets-25": a new Russian armored vehicle
On May 9, 2020, armored vehicles—Kurganets-25—passed through Red Square. Their appearance - first in ceremonial units, at test sites, and in the near future for a large-scale replacement of armored vehicles currently in service with the Russian army - means a fundamentally new stage in the century-long development of domestic combat vehicles.
Let us highlight the main characteristic - the vehicles of the Kurganets-25 family are noticeably heavier than their predecessors. The BMP-1, which in 1965 laid the foundation for a new class of infantry fighting vehicles, weighed 13 tons. Its successor, the BMP-2, added up to 14 tons in weight by 1980. The BMP-3 already weighed almost 19 tons. And the base weight of the “class” vehicles Kurganets-25" should fit into 25 tons, as the name implies. Let's look in the history of domestic defense equipment for masses close to Kurganets-25. Here it is, 25,600 kg. We find it in a document entitled “Album of photographs and characteristics of the T-34 tank.” KhPZ, 1940. Coincidence? It’s unlikely... Nature has very definite laws, and technology, including military technology, is created on their basis. What problem did the designers of the T-34 tank solve? Create a vehicle invulnerable to small arms fire, shrapnel and massive anti-tank guns. Small arms are, say, 12.7 mm machine guns, for example the American Browning M2.
Anti-tank guns in 1940 were German 37 mm Pak 35/36 and 50 mm Pak 38, 25 mm French guns from Hotchkiss, and 37 mm Polish guns produced under license. All of them turned out to be ineffective against the T-34 armor. Let's look at the cannon armament of possible opponents of the Kurganets-25: American M2 Bradley infantry fighting vehicle with a 25-mm M242 Bushmaster cannon; German Marder infantry fighting vehicle with 20 mm Rheinmetall Rh 202, promising German Puma infantry fighting vehicle with 30 mm Rheinmetall MK-30.
Barrage
Let's turn again to military history, this time to the history of artillery. Let's take the memoirs of Marshal of Artillery Konstantin Petrovich Kazakov - “The Shaft of Fire of the Offensive.” The barrage of fire is a signature technique from the special tactics of Russian artillery. Its essence is to create a continuous fire curtain of artillery shell explosions in front of the front of advancing units and units, which is moved as our troops advance. To be successful, the infantry must move as close to the firewall as possible. So, in order to have time to take the enemy’s positions while he is still stunned and scared, while he is hiding in dugouts from shrapnel and blast waves. Walk, clinging to the tanks. The only problem is that a projectile in flight is subject to various physical factors, which, when numbered more than seven, form a statistical normal distribution law. Hundreds of guns are fired during the barrage of fire - the shells will go in a churned atmosphere, through which supersonic shock waves are walking. So the KVO parameter, the circular deviation value, characterizing the shooting accuracy, determines only statistics, the size of the circle in which - subject to the requirements of the mathematical law of large numbers - half of the shells will fall. And the other half will lie outside of it. Therefore, the mass of new armored vehicles of the Kurganets-25 family is the most important parameter: it determines the possibility of equipping them with armor that provides anti-fragmentation protection. And modern shells, equipped with pre-formed striking elements, all sorts of arrows (as in our 3Sh2 or the American XM580E1), produce fragments that are completely different from the artillery grenades of 1940. As a result, motorized rifles gain protection from indirect fire at the level of tank crews, which makes it possible to take full advantage of the barrage of fire.
Fashionable silhouette
Another feature of the new armored vehicles is their silhouette. It, roughly corresponding to the height of American and German infantry fighting vehicles, is somewhat higher than the traditionally low silhouette of domestic armored vehicles. But this is not a disadvantage, but an advantage. The legendary T-34 was created for fighters of average height of 167 cm. The same standards existed in the 1960s. But since then people have become larger. And defensive weapons have returned to use. The infantryman of the Great Patriotic War had only a helmet made of Ural steel. But a modern motorized rifleman, in addition to a protective helmet, has equipment weighing more than 30 kg: a protective mask, goggles, body armor, a radio station, and a multifunctional control panel. And in the airborne compartments of an armored personnel carrier or infantry fighting vehicle, it makes sense to wear a combat protective kit - another layer of protection did not bother anyone. But this requires additional reserve volume.
However, the height of the car can be changed due to adjustable ground clearance. The road (and off-road!) clearance of the Kurganets-25 - the distance between the ground and the lowest point of the central part of the vehicle - can be adjusted from 100 to 500 mm. It is maximum when it is necessary to overcome complex, difficult terrain, and minimum when it is necessary to hide from enemy eyes behind an obstacle or load a car into a ship’s hold of a limited height or the cargo compartment of an aircraft.
"Kurganets-25" has a hydropneumatic suspension, and severe necessity forces its use. Armored vehicles will have to move not only on roads, but also over rough terrain - while carrying motorized riflemen in the airborne squad, who at the end of the trip will have to fight a battle that requires the utmost effort. That is why the designers tried to reduce overloads and preserve their strength for combat work as much as possible.
Let's return to the characteristics of the T-34 of 1940, which was close in weight to the Kurganets-25. It was powered by a V-shaped V-2 diesel engine, whose twelve cylinders with a volume of 38.9 liters developed a power of 500 hp. and torque 1960 Nm. The serial Kurganets-25 will have a new in-line turbodiesel YaMZ-780. Its six cylinders with a volume of 12.4 liters produce a power of 750 hp. and torque 2550 Nm. And the engine life is not 50 hours, as in 1940, but 1000. So the power per ton of weight (30 hp/t) of the Kurganets-25 is even higher than that of the BMP-3 (26.73 l .s./t).
Jack of all trades
Now let’s explain why until now we called “Kurganets-25” with the archaic term armored vehicle, evading the usual words armored personnel carrier and infantry fighting vehicle. The fact is that this car, like the “soldier-sailor” glorified by Kipling, is a marine, a sailor and a soldier. Different weapon modules can be installed on the armored platform, turning a vehicle of a single design into an infantry fighting vehicle or armored personnel carrier. Having a single armored platform is good for production - standardized parts, subassemblies, assemblies and structures can be produced in large batches, which will reduce both production costs and the expenses of the Ministry of Defense.
Unification is also very good in the army: equipment will have to be maintained and repaired, and having one set of repair equipment, repairmen trained for one vehicle and a single set of spare parts is very effective. So let's look at the options in which Kurganets-25 can be used. Well, first of all, the armored personnel carrier that emerged chronologically was the first. The progenitor of this class of vehicles was the English Mark IX Armored Personell Carrier, created in 1918 and a little late to the Western Front. This vehicle, weighing 27 tons, could carry 30 infantrymen, and for self-defense it had two French Hotchkiss machine guns. Speed - 6 km/h on the road. Protection is only from bullets; you can’t follow a barrage of fire. The soldiers were literally sitting on top of each other... And in 1933, the USSR tested the TR-1 infantry transport tank, created on the chassis of the T-26 tank. An armored booth with a door at the back—an almost modern Kurganets-25 ramp—housed 14 soldiers. It was then that military experts of the Red Army noted what still separates armored personnel carriers and infantry fighting vehicles. If 14 soldiers were crammed into an armored compartment, due to the cramped space, they could not fire their rifles. And if this is necessary, the number of troops will have to be limited to five riflemen.
Let's look at the first configuration of the Kurganets-25. This is an armored personnel carrier. A landing party of eight motorized riflemen and a machine gun for self-defense. Just like a century ago. These characteristics are again dictated by physics. An enemy soldier who decides to get close to an armored personnel carrier with a grenade launcher or persistently running next to an assault rifle will have more than enough machine-gun bullets. Conducting a battle with armored vehicles of a similar class is not the task of an armored personnel carrier. Therefore, the armored personnel carrier received a universal machine gun module controlled remotely by a shooter from the vehicle’s crew. Its movement along the azimuth and elevation angle of the target (the so-called angle between the target line and the horizon of small arms) is carried out by electric drives, which are easier to maintain than hydraulics. The control system allows the shooter to only select a target on the screen and “authorize” the fire. Then the machine will accompany her himself. Let’s compare an “inhabited” tower and an “uninhabited” tower under armor of the same thickness. The first will require more space to accommodate a person. This will cause an increase in the armor volume, which will require a larger area of armor for its protection, which will lead to an increase, firstly, in the mass of the turret, and secondly, in its moment of inertia and, consequently, to a significant increase in the power of the control drives.
On the hull of the Kurganets, mortars distributed in azimuth are visible.
The system detects incoming ammunition and, when it approaches, fires an anti-missile projectile. When detonated, it creates a sheaf of fragments that destroys or knocks an enemy rocket or grenade off course. Exact data on the operation of the Kurganets-25 active protection complex is classified.
Almost a tank
Well, the BMP will have to go in the same formation with tanks and fight both with infantry and with armored vehicles and aircraft. Therefore, a heavier and more complex universal unmanned combat module “Boomerang-BM” is installed on it. It combines missile, cannon and small arms weapons, an electro-optical fire control system and guidance drives. Uniformity will allow it to be installed on various types of machines. The most powerful weapon in the Boomerang-BM module is the Kornet anti-tank missiles. There are four of them, and they are placed in pairs. Even in the export version (in defense technology, the capabilities of export products are reduced in comparison with weapons supplied to their own army), they showed very high efficiency when working on American M1 Abrams tanks, both supplied by the US to the army of post-Saddam Iraq, and purchased by Saudi Arabia and sent to Yemen for a small victorious war.
Ammunition for the 30-mm 2A42 cannon designed by Academician A.G. Shipunova and V.P. Gryazev - 500 shells. This is exactly how much can be produced without introducing special and extremely heavy cooling systems, such as water. Power is supplied from two bunkers, switchable depending on the class of the target. For infantry and unarmored targets there are 340 high-explosive fragmentation shells. For armored targets - 160 armor-piercing sabot shells. The maximum gun elevation angle is 70 degrees. The gun can also work against air targets - the high dynamics of the uninhabited tower and the vigilant electro-optical system allow this. Well, and also - the 7.62 mm PKTM machine gun, polished to the limit over decades of mass production, with an ammunition load of 2000 rounds. It is classified as a secondary weapon, but can play a larger role in the active protection system for firing cumulative ammunition. Let's not forget about small-sized drones, which will appear more and more over the battlefield. A three-line cartridge is exactly what these little ones need.
The use of an active protection system again leads to the need for heavy armor. This is also pure physics, conservation laws. After all, if we fire grenades from mortars towards enemy cumulative ammunition, we generate sheaves of fragments that will also hit the armor - they, of course, are aimed at someone else’s projectile, but only statistically. Ammunition that is broken or detonated at a long distance will not go anywhere - debris or a defocused cumulative jet will fly further by inertia, following the laws of Newtonian mechanics. And to stop them, you need thick enough armor.
Head of the family
High security achieved due to its large weight makes it possible to make the Kurganets-25 a platform for a whole family of combat vehicles, combat, technical and logistics support vehicles: anti-tank guns, self-propelled artillery systems, air defense vehicles, engineering vehicles, radiation, chemical and biological vehicles protection, as well as armored ambulances. Their need became clear back in the 1930s, but in 1938 the production capabilities of the USSR made it possible to produce the BA-22 ambulance transport armored car in only one copy. An ambulance based on the Kurganets-25 will make it possible to evacuate the wounded from the front line - which means it will be possible to deliver them to surgery earlier, which significantly increases the chances of survival. So, precisely thanks to its fairly solid weight, which provides a combination of reliable armor protection, high mine resistance with tactical mobility in modern conditions, the Kurganets-25 family of armored vehicles will have massive and varied service in the ranks of the Russian army and, most likely, in the armies of buyers of export versions of domestic weapons.
Ride in a box
Text: Alexander Grek
“Kurganets-25” is not a serial infantry fighting vehicle, but a prototype. Or rather, several samples, and they all differ from each other. Chief designer of Kurganmashzavod Sergei Abdulov says that when adopted for service, the name may also change. However, despite the fact that many elements of our promising infantry fighting vehicle are classified as “secret”, we were given the opportunity to drive an armored vehicle around the training ground. The early morning greeted us with snow, brisk frost and the newest Kurganets-25 at the factory site. Up close, the car seems huge and inactive, nothing like a regular car. Oddly enough, it is not difficult to climb into the driver’s seat - convenient steps are molded into the elements of the mounted dynamic protection. A moment - and I’m on the armor, a couple more seconds - and I’m in the driver’s seat, to the left of the powerful 750-horsepower multi-fuel engine. "Kurganets-25" can operate on any type of fuel. The controls turned out to be extremely simple: we put the automatic transmission control lever in the “drive” mode, press the gas pedal, and the multi-ton armored vehicle easily and without jerking begins to move along the broken polygon road. A small steering wheel is used to control the course: turn right - go right, turn left - go left. The second surprise is the smoothness of the ride. It feels like under the tracks there are not icy bumps and broken ruts, but smooth asphalt. In the troop compartment, where I also took a ride, it’s comfortable, you don’t even have to wear a seat belt, although all the seats are equipped with multi-point belts and mechanisms to reduce overload during a mine explosion. I also sat in the place of the gunner operator. The feeling that you are in a well-known computer game - targets are visible on the screen in different modes, optical or thermal imaging, you point the crosshairs at them, lock on to the target, and the electronics instantly perform all the ballistic calculations and keep the cannon and machine gun on the target. All that remains is to press the appropriate trigger. The ergonomics even surpass the PlayStation controls. Once again I envied the soldiers who would serve with the new equipment.
Modernization control
In recent years, due to the tense situation in the world, the Russian defense industry has been meeting not only its own internal needs, but also the needs of partner states. The modernization of weapons in recent years has been taking place at a fairly dynamic pace and foreign competitors are barely able to withstand the competition. Control of weapons modernization takes place under the supervision of the highest echelons of power.
Russian President Vladimir Putin at an extended meeting of the Ministry of Defense board stated the following:
I would like to draw your attention to the fact that if we simply allow ourselves to relax at least for a minute, to allow at least one significant failure in the modernization of the army and navy, in the training of troops, the situation can quickly change. Vladimir Putin
Exploitation
Almost nothing is known about the experience of practical use of the new infantry fighting vehicle. Individual copies were sent to the troops for preliminary testing back in 2015-16. Based on the results of this inspection, it was said that the military did not like the too high profile of the Kurganets. However, the height of the car has not changed since then.
The Ministry of Defense intends to begin large-scale operation of this infantry fighting vehicle before the end of 2020, but this will only become possible if Kurganmashzavod does not miss the deadline for completing the necessary work.
Author of the article:
Fedorov Dmitry
